


it's only yours if you run for it

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 2018 Skate Canada International, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Strained Friendships, zhenya is an angel and alina is a good friend and brian is my dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 13:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16620269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It hurts, because these past few months have been some of the hardest of her life but also some of the happiest. She knows the feeling of topping the podium again and again and again, shattering record after record, and those feelings were intense and wonderful but short-lived, fleeting, and in between competitions she'd find herself lonely and aching for the next win, devastated when her hot streak came to a screeching halt after two years of nothing but gold. This happiness is different in that it feels durable.Shefeels durable. In mind and in body.Or at least she did.Or: Evgenia, Skate Canada, and learning to lose.





	it's only yours if you run for it

**Author's Note:**

> standard disclaimer for rpf applies: i don't know any of these people irl and do not claim this to be an accurate representation of them or the events of skate canada 2018

She's been staring at the ceiling for the better part of an hour now. Her phone, still in the corner from where she tossed it the moment she got in, buzzes persistently every few minutes. She ignores it.

She wants to cry, but she doesn't. She can't.

Evgenia thinks that perhaps she's finally out of tears. She'd thought the same thing after Pyeongchang, but no, that hadn't been true, because there'd been plenty of tears in the weeks after she returned home. Tears when Eteri started talking about quad jumps, using words like  _when_ instead of _if_ while Evgenia's entire body already ached so badly she thought she'd die. Tears when she realized what she wanted to do,  _needed_  to do, and more tears still when she finally said it aloud. Tears, hot and angry, as she listened to her former coach recount words she doesn't remember ever saying, words she would never say. Tears on the plane to Toronto, leaving Russia and everything there she's ever loved far behind. Tears those first few weeks on the ice at TCC, when she realized just how much she needed to learn.

But now there's nothing. No tears, no sob caught in the back of her throat or building in her chest. Just the pounding, persistent ache of disappointment.

She thinks of Pyeongchang, as she tends to do when she's alone even now. She thinks of how by the time the final train whistle blew, it felt like she'd torn her own chest open and let her heart bleed all over the ice. She'd given everything she had and then given some more, and it wasn't enough. She was so used to it being enough until, suddenly, it wasn't.

She thinks about Worlds next year and how badly she wants to make it there. Thinks of the headlines: MEDVEDEVA RECLAIMS WORLD CHAMPION TITLE WITH STUNNING VICTORY IN SAITAMA. This feels like it might be her last chance. Eteri's juniors won't be juniors for much longer, and Evgenia knows that no matter how hard she works, even if she fixes her lutz and throws herself into combinations that could rival Alina's, she will not be able to compete with them.

And of course she knows that's not the point.  _You need to worry about being the best version of yourself,_  Brian told her.  _Not a better version of anyone else._

Evgenia knows he's right.

But it still hurts.

It hurts, because these past few months have been some of the hardest of her life but also some of the happiest. She knows the feeling of topping the podium again and again and again, shattering record after record, and those feelings were intense and wonderful but short-lived, fleeting, and in between competitions she'd find herself lonely and aching for the next win, devastated when her hot streak came to a screeching halt after two years of nothing but gold. This happiness is different in that it feels durable.  _She_  feels durable. In mind and in body.

Or at least she did. And now she probably won't even make it to the final — an objective that should have been easy to attain, gone in an instant.

Evgenia finally scoots over to her phone, intent on ignoring every single message that isn't from Brian or her mother. As luck would have it, Brian's is right there on top, flashing in front of her eyes like a guiding light.

(11:20 pm) _Do you want to talk about it?_

Evgenia catches her bottom lip with her teeth and contemplates turning off her phone altogether, pretending she's asleep. But Brian is smart enough to know she's awake, running the mistake over and over again in her mind (it'd been going so well, all of it, and she'd gone for the flip even when her mind was screaming  _too fast too fast too fast_.) He wouldn't have texted otherwise. And Evgenia knows that if she doesn't reply he'll just come up to her room to make sure she's okay.

(11:37 pm) **i don't know what to say**

It takes less than a minute for him to respond.

(11:37 pm)  _Then let me do the talking...let's take a walk?_

"What are you feeling?" is the first thing he asks her when she meets him down in front of the hotel, wearing two pairs of tights under her pajama pants and her coat zipped up to her chin.

"I don't know," Evgenia answers, and, oh — then the tears come, the same tears they'd mocked her for after the Olympics, the tears they'd used to call her selfish. She was only half-lying when she said she didn't know; mostly, it's that she doesn't know how to say it in English. Learning to speak it fluently has been a fun challenge up until now, something that's kept her on her toes, but in this moment it's just frustrating because she wants to explain but she doesn't know how.

"You can do better," he tells her, and Evgenia inhales shakily, nodding as she stares down at his worn sneakers. "But nobody's perfect, Evgenia." That last part still startles her, no matter how many times he says it. A mistake like the one she made today would have earned her comforting hugs from Eteri, sure, but a torrent of ugly words and cold indifference would follow her into practice until she went back out onto the ice and proved she was better. Proved that she was worthy of Eteri's time, her love.

They talk for a long time — Evgenia tries to articulate her thoughts into words and Brian listens, mostly, more patient than anyone. She tells him that she doesn't understand why she's so nervous all the time, now, and he asks if she's  _really_  sure she doesn't know why. That makes her laugh.

"Get some rest," Brian offers gently, finally, clapping her on the shoulder like she's watched him do with his other skaters so many times. 

She feels better, mostly, but her mind keeps her wide awake. She's weeding through the messages that have flooded her phone in the last few hours when one in particular sticks out like a sore thumb. A name that's always caught in the back of her mind but hasn't showed up in her messages since she left Moscow, no matter how many times Evgenia reached out.

Alina.

(10:46 pm) _sorry to hear about your sp...good luck tomorrow, medvedeva._

Evgenia feels her throat close, blinking back the tears that have sprung to the surface yet again. She has a terrible vision of them all back in Moscow, huddled over someone's phone and laughing themselves hoarse at her silly, nervous mistake.  _Run away to Canada to train, and for what? To fall? To fail?_

Her fingers move on their own accord, and before she knows it she's sent a message in response.

(1:14 am)  **you finally unblocked me??? :D**

Her phone buzzes a few minutes later. She's surprised; she'd expected Alina to be well into practice right about now.

(1:18 am)  _don't make me regret it._

Blood rushes in her ears. It's such a cold message, so disconnected from the warmth she's used to from Alina. The kind of cold that's grown thick and jagged between them ever since the beginning of last season. If Evgenia is a fairy then Alina is a phoenix, burning her way across the ice fearlessly, the fury that nobody — even Evgenia — saw coming until it was too late.

But it's over now. She can't get it back.

(1:18 am)  **please hear me out alina...you know me...i would never say those things. not about you or anyone**

(1:18 am) _i know_

Evgenia frowns.

(1:19 am) **then why block me in the first place??**

The response is almost instantaneous, perfectly echoing what Evgenia already knows:

(1:20 am) _i was hurt. i didn't know what to think. all i knew was that it hurt and you were gone and i didn't know what to do_.

Another message a second later:

(1:20 am)  _can we not talk about this? this is why i blocked you in the first place. i can't afford to let all of this distract me right now._

(1:21 am)  **fine. sorry. thanks for the well wishes. good luck in finland next week...not that you need it**

(1:21 am)  _so you've been stalking my events too i see._

(1:22 am)  **i prefer the term "studying"**

A few minutes pass by. Nothing. Evgenia aches for the connection back, if only for another moment. Alina is a piece of home. Alina is a friend — or at least she was.

(1:28 am)  **did she kill you :(**

(1:30 am)  _lmao. not yet. daniil is trying to tho._

(1:31 am)  **someone please for the love of all that is holy take his collection of stock sound effects away from him, amen**

(1:34 am)  _oh my god_

(1:35 am)  **the breaking glass is a nice touch  
**

(1:35 am)  _STOP_

(1:35 am) _you know it would've gone to you if you'd stayed. it's got your dramatic flair written all over it._

(1:36 am)  **guess i got out just in time then**

Another long stretch of time passes with nothing, and Evgenia worries that maybe she's upset Alina again. She's about to give up, turn the lights off and try to get some sleep when the phone chimes.

(1:52 am) _i miss you, z._

Evgenia's heart clenches, because this is Alina, and she's not Olympic champion Alina Zagitova, not the Alina Zagitova the world wants to pit against her. She's just Alina, tiny little Zagi from Izhevsk, watching from the sidelines with huge awestruck eyes as Evgenia runs through her choreography.

(1:53 am) **miss you too, zagi. give masaru a kiss for me pls**

Alina's response to that is a simple one — just the crying emoji followed by a red heart, and Evgenia is once again reminded how young she is, how kind and restrained she had been after her victory in Pyeongchang just to avoid hurting Evgenia's feelings. Things had been awkward at best after that, and how could they not be, really?

She lived through her injury, then lived through Europeans. She lived through the Olympics, hard as it was to do so. She lived through nursing her ankle and her back and not being able to jump. She lived through moving to Toronto, lived through her named being dragged through the mud by someone she used to think of as her second mother.

She lived through all of it, and she's going to live through this too.

 

/

 

There's a wild animal inside of her, somewhere, and Evgenia spends all morning on the ice trying to wake it up. She's exhausted and hungry but determination is burning hot and angry in her belly, and by the time she steps onto the ice for her free program she feels like a live wire. The crowd is loud but her thoughts are louder, voices in her head (Brian, Tracy, Alina, her mother, and Eteri too — Evgenia thinks Eteri will always be a piece of her, for better or for worse) leading her through her step sequences.

It seems like both an eternity and the blink of an eye as she transitions into her final combination spin, and then it's over, it's really over, and she knows there were mistakes but she landed every single one of her jumps and it feels like her entire body is on fire. The crowd roars their approval, rising up to cheer her on, blowing kisses and waving flags.

Brian is waiting for her by the boards, and Evgenia doesn't even step off the ice before throwing her arms around him. He claps her on the back, firmly, like he's trying to prove to her that she's real, that she won't break. He won't let her.

There's a flurry of commotion, relieved laughter, a wreath of flowers placed on her head and Luna in her lap. First place, for now. She knows it won't stick, not with Liza coming down the line. But for now it feels like enough, and with pink flowers falling into her eyes, Evgenia finally breathes a sigh of relief.

 

/

 

In the end, she does not win. She doesn't even get second. But she does make the podium, and a year ago bronze would mean death, bronze would mean failure, bronze would mean tearing herself apart in practice for weeks on end until she could hardly move.

She looks up at Liza — Liza, who fell so far and came back with a roaring vengeance. She looks over at Mako — Mako, overflowing with talent and so very young with a smile like a blooming flower. She reminds her of Alina, just a bit. Evgenia looks out into the screaming darkness, dotted with flashbulbs, and smiles.

At Europeans, silver had felt like a gift. At the Olympics, it had felt like a curse. Now she stands with bronze around her neck (for the first time ever in her senior career, the headlines will be sure to point out), and it feels like hope.

After all, Evgenia realizes, every fire goes out eventually, but ashes can always reignite.

**Author's Note:**

> i never thought i'd write rpf ever again but i was brought to actual legitimate tears over how much i love this gal after skate canada last month and how fucking proud i am of her and this literally just poured out of me lmao


End file.
